Of explosive words and quiet glances
by cocacolagirl97
Summary: What if it had been Karen's voice on the other end of that call in the final moments of season two?


**A/N:** I let the characters take me on this journey. Even I wasn't sure where it would end.

I hope it brings you some sort of closure as it did I.

* * *

His trap for the two gangs had been easy as hell to set up.

Pit their naive arrogance against each other, and they come running. Criminals are getting dumber and dumber, he thinks.

The pre-fight adrenaline is kicking in as he double checks his rounds, when the unfamiliar sound of a cell phone buzzing breaks through his thoughts.

He can count the number of people who have this number on one hand, after a finger has been broken off, and this is the first time it's made a sound in three months.

"Hello," he grates out, praying to hear Amy's voice scolding him for not keeping in contact or another of Curtis's self-righteous pleas for him to make something better of his life.

"Get the hell off me," Karen's muffled voice answers instead, sounding far away as a shiver runs down his spine.

He hears the low grumble of a man's voice next, unable to make out anything beyond "bitch," "dead," and "now."

"Karen?" he grinds out, only somewhat succeeding in keeping the desperation out of his voice.

His only reply is the sound of shuffling before the line goes dead.

He hits redial instantly but with each unanswered ring, his blood boils a little hotter, his trigger finger now dancing against his thigh.

The engine roars back to life as he peels off without a real direction in mind. The gangs would have to wait or with any luck they'd handle the job for him.

His fingers find the 3 on his speed dial, and when he hears the click of the connection, he doesn't even give her a chance to speak.

"I need you to trace a call," he barks, because he's nothing if not a man on a mission.

"... Frank?" her voice sounds already so done with his shit. "Do I even want to know how you got this number?"

"Madani, it's Karen," he gives it to her straight, speeding through another red light.

There is a pause on the other end of the line and then, "Is it the last number you called?"

Because even Dinah Madani knows what Karen Page means.

He confirms and she tells him to hold on a second before reporting that the call originated from a place called Josie's.

He hangs up without another word and tries Karen's number again. Still no answer.

* * *

To say the neighborhood patrons of Josie's Bar had at all expected to see The Punisher, skull and all, bursting through the door, guns up, when they had wandered in that night, would be quite obviously ridiculous.

A few people scream, more than one instantly begins begging for mercy assuming he had come for them, and most dive under tables and barstools.

Basically everyone in the place has about the reaction you'd imagine.

That is except Karen Page, who sits entirely oblivious to the world with her head on the bar, eyes closed.

"Karen?" he barks, eyes flying everywhere in search of the threat.

When she doesn't reply or move a muscle, he calls out again a bit more frantically, moving toward her.

"She's passed out man," the lady behind the bar braves. "Had one too many."

The stench of booze hits him in the face the instant he gets up next to her, her right hand still wrapped around an empty glass next to her head.

"Carry on," he barks to the patrons staring him down with wide eyes as he straps the guns back onto his person.

It's becoming pretty clear what he had walked into, but he still has to be sure.

"Glass of water please ma'am," he addresses the bartender, pretending he doesn't know her hand is resting on a shotgun behind the bar.

Taking a seat on a stool next to the blonde, he pulls the glass from her grasp and moves her hair away from her mouth before taking her shoulder in his grasp.

"Karen?" he gives one good shake and she's up, arm shooting toward her purse and the .380 within. But he had expected this and latches onto her wrist.

"Hey," he murmurs, and he can see the exact moment she realizes it's him.

There is a flash in her eyes, followed by a lopsided grin, which turns into a scowl, and settles on a tired sigh.

"Can I get a refill?" she turns away from him completely.

He guides the water into her hand instead, which she takes without a word.

"You okay?" he asks lowly.

"Oh I'm just freakin' dandy," she says and there's a bit of a slur.

"Did some guy come at you?" he presses.

She doesn't even bother wondering how he had known.

"Just another entitled drunk bastard," she grumbles. "I can handle myself."

"Where is he," he demands, already moving to stand, but pausing when she fixes him with a glare.

"I said I can handle myself," she repeats loud enough that a few people turn to look at them.

"Course, course you can," he relents, settling back on the stool.

He waits because she is always the one to engage first, but tonight she just sits silently, nursing the water and staring at a spot on the wall without really seeing it.

"You meeting someone?" he finally says, but they both know what he's actually asking.

"Can you just not," she lets the liquid courage do the talking. "This whole using him as some messed up excuse to keep yourself detached from the world is getting pretty old."

He's only been dodging this topic since a diner massacre that began with a damn good cup of coffee, so he allows himself to write it off as drunken ramblings.

"What're you doing here Karen?" he backtracks, all the way back to safety, he hopes.

He's not sure she's even going to answer, and neither is she, but then she sighs.

"I don't know, maybe I'm trying to forget."

He knows what he's supposed to do next, what's expected of him, but he just can't afford to risk that path, can't admit that he knows where it would lead.

"Let me take you home," he says, and she can almost see herself doing just that.

Almost.

She wants to pretend that she's just a girl sitting in a bar with a boy sporting a bloody vest.

And a year ago maybe she could, back before an elevator overflowing with blood and adrenaline and a hospital room painted in memories of ghosts.

But now, now she's Karen Page, professional emotional punching bag for New York's vigilanties, and this version of herself doesn't have that luxury.

"You can't just keep showing up in my life whenever it suits you and then throwing me away away like yesterday's trash under some false label of protecting me!"

It explodes out of her and for a moment he actually looks surprised, she thinks it's the first time she's ever seen him wear the expression.

"It _is_ to protect you," he insists, ignoring the strain in his voice.

"Bullshit," she spits back nearly before he even finishes speaking.

"Death follows me Karen, you know that," he growls.

"Bullshit," she repeats, jabbing him in the chest with her finger. "You chase after it."

"I do what has to be done," he challenges. "I do what no one else can."

"God do you even hear how high and mighty you sound?" she snarls. "You're not the only person in the whole city who's doing something to diminish all the dark shadows."

"Because your Matt Murdock is doing such a damn great job?" he scoffs.

He doesn't even get to finish his thought before she's slipping off the stool to stand at her full height.

"Shut the hell up about Matt!" she yells, and anyone's eye's who weren't already on them certainly are now. "He doesn't matter here, never has, but I think you know that! I think you know exactly where I stand but you speak for me, creating these roadblocks, because you're afraid!"

She seems to be deliciously oblivious that she's shouting in a public space, airing all their dirty laundry for the world to witness, but he's still painfully sober.

"I am not afraid," he grinds out, rising to meet her eye-line.

She pauses and takes her time formulating her next statement, takes so long in fact that it crosses his mind that he should grab her hand and tell her not to say it, because he can see what's coming through the fire in her eyes.

"You," she stares him down, "are a coward."

He's not impulsive, never has been, but in that moment the darkest parts of him are scratching at the surface, threatening to overflow.

And she knows. She knew what those words would do. And she's standing there, not backing down an inch, waiting.

They're locked in some sort of staredown, breathing heavily, ready to take the whole damn bar down with them.

It's Josie who breaks the moment, setting down two glasses of whiskey beside them without a word.

Karen grabs one first, with a glance that's just daring him to try to stop her, and he's transported to his countless attempts at convincing her to not write about the city's dark corners, which always ended in her name on the front page the next morning anyway.

He follows her lead as though he hasn't been doing so since that first dark night and hospital hallway littered with shotgun shells.

"I don't know how to be anything other than what I am Karen," he shrugs to cover up how honest the words are.

"No one's asking you to be," she whispers, reminiscent of a relationship that's all explosive words and quiet glances. "I know what you are and I accept all of it. It's you who doesn't."

"How can I?" he scoffs, looking down at the skull on his chest without even meaning too.

"You can allow yourself to see yourself through someone else's eyes," she determines, and he supposes the water must've taken some of the edge off because she's morphing back into the Karen Page who looks at him like he's got sunshine flying out of his ass.

"Oh yeah?" He tells himself he's just humoring her. "And what would I look like then?"

"A bit of a dick," she says without hesitation.

There's the whiskey kicking in, he thinks, but then she starts laughing and he can't help but chuckle too because, well, she's not wrong.

He waits for her to compose herself because he needs to know what she honestly and truly thinks, even if it rips the hell out of his heart.

"But also," she finally says. "Also the bravest, most selfless and caring man I've ever met."

It's a real nice moment and perhaps, if they were normal, he'd take the opportunity to tell her she's far more selfless and caring, and especially far more brave.

But when two people have spent more time together bloody than anything else, normal doesn't really apply.

"Leave it to The Punisher," she puts air quotes around what she has numerous times labeled a ridiculous name, "to have such a big heart, he pulls it out and buries it in the sand like Davy Jones."

He can tell she's real proud of herself for the analogy and hopes to God if he doesn't pay it any attention, it won't stick.

"No one's gonna be accusing you of being a lightweight, now are they?" He veers out of the conversation all together, gesturing to her glass. "How many of these have you had?"

"You have to be in my life or out of it," she says instead of answering, because she's never let him off easy and never will. "I deserve that much at least."

She waits for him to come back with his classic "you deserve so much better, can't you see I'm doing this for you" crap, so when he simply says "I know," it's as though he's finally, really heard her for the first time.

There are only two places they can go from here.

She refuses to think about the one because she will not be the woman crying at a bar as a man disappears from her life because it's the only way he knows how.

Instead, she throws her entire soul into the belief that two broken people could still fit together with so many of their pieces missing.

Standing, she takes a step toward the door, the hardest step she's ever taken, then turns to face him.

"Come home with me, Frank," she breathes.

And she holds out her hand.


End file.
